A great garden doesn't have to cost the earth for Bury

Reporter: Ask Bury
Date online: 09 May 2008

As residents in Bury get their gardens prepared for Spring, Recycle Now and Bury Council have joined up for the 3rd year to promote the benefits of home composting.

The scheme, which aims to encourage residents to compost more at home by offering tips, advice and cheaper compost bins, has proved a huge success with Bury residents. In Bury alone, 3,852 bins have been sold since 2006.

Home composting is still one of the best ways to help the environment on a daily basis, and is a habit that can be quickly incorporated into your regular kitchen and garden routines. For instance, it's not just grass cuttings that can go into your compost bin: you can also add scrunched up cardboard, teabags, vegetable peelings and coffee granules - even shredded confidential documents.

Spring is a great time to start composting, as it's a good time to get into the garden as the weather starts improving. While the garden may have been lying dormant over the winter, at this time of year it often looks more welcoming. Why not take the opportunity to clear out any garden debris from the winter months, and use this garden waste to give your compost bin a kick-start for the new season? And if you don't already have a compost bin, there couldn't be a better time to get started.
Composting at home is a great way of providing a free, nutrient-rich fertiliser for your garden - but it's also an easy way to do your own bit for the environment from the comfort of your own home. When organic waste is put into your black bin bag, it gets taken to landfill, and when it rots down it produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas. By recycling this waste at home in your compost bin, the same waste breaks down in an environmentally friendly way and can then be used to keep your garden green and looking fantastic.

Councillor Dorothy Gunther, Executive Member for Environment and Transport said "It's important that we all try to do our bit to help the environment. Composting at home is just one of the actions we can take to ensure we minimise the amount of waste we create and the more people that get involved the bigger the difference we can make."

Compost bins will be available for order in Bury on Friday 9 May 2008. Visit the Compost Awareness stand at Mill Gate Shopping Centre at the bottom of Minden parade. Compost bins cost from as little as £17.00. To find out more, visit www.recyclenow.com/compost or call 0845 077 0757.